Battle Rope Training: Deadlift Form SandRope Slams

November 3rd, 2014

Battle Rope Training: Deadlift Form for SandRope Slams

How to get the most out of battling ropes exercises

Hyperwear SandRope Fitness Ropes

Battle rope training with SandRope slams is a great no-impact, joint-friendly, full-body exercise, that improves power, strength, and provides great cardio. The benefit, however, is lost when people begin with a flawed foundation for their battle rope training.

Many ignore the lower body completely, and just try to fire through their anterior deltoids to slam a SandRope fitness rope. They brace the lower body in an isometric position and flex and extend only at the shoulder joint. This will render great upper body strength (anterior deltoids on the lift and lats on the slam down), but if you just want to target your shoulders, why turn to fitness ropes? Just grab a set of dumbbells, a SandBell sandbag weight, a medicine ball, or even two cans of soup and do front shoulder raises to your heart’s content. But when battle rope training with SandRopes, don’t just isolate one body part or enhance one component of physical fitness. Use this more dynamic battle rope for what it’s great at: targeting your entire body and all components of physical fitness!

Squats are taxing on the quads and glutes. They lift and lower the body, vertically. Squats will absolutely get your heart rate elevated if you build a SandRope slam from a squat base, but you will fizzle quickly. You’ll get fantastic cardio, but it will feel like a colossal waste of energy. If getting your heart rate up with battle rope training is your goal, you deliberately want to put yourself at a mechanical disadvantage: make it as hard as possible because that will tax your heart and lungs. In that respect, ding, ding, ding: jackpot! But that 15 pound SandRope fitness rope (the lightest SandRope) will feel like a HEAVY full filled fire hose!

Most people turn to battle ropes for the athletic conditioning and power benefit. That just happens to also improve full-body strength with cardio as an ancillary benefit. If you put your body at a mechanical advantage, that SandRope battle rope (whether 15 or 30 pounds) will be yours to dominate. By creating a slingshot with your hips, you will be slamming that SandRope like a champ! A bent-knee dead lift is a surefire way to make your body a SandRope slamming machine.

In the video, watch Hyperwear Master Trainer, Brook Benten, unleash great force on the SandRope battling ropes by building her Slam from a bent-knee dead lift base. She teaches you how to strategically use your torso, hips, and thighs to apply force from the “big house” (the glutes) onto the SandRope fitness rope.